An enchantment at the Shrieking Shack goes awry, and Draco Malfoy is turned into a helpless puppy. Hermione might be the only one who can help him change back if they can attempt to get along. Dogs might be a man's best friend, but not a witch's!

Title: Secret of the Shrieking ShackRating:
PGDisclaimer: All I own are dreams.

Author's
Notes: Ah, this is my first HP fic. Ever. ;; But I've been
a Dramione shipper since... er, Prisoner of Azkaban's movie came out
(I ended up reading the whole series after that, and getting
hooked!). BUT! I have been writing fics for over 10 years now, and I
sincerely hope I do Pezi's request from the dmhgficexchange on
LiveJournal some justice. I don't think I can necessarily kick the
rating up to R without having my first DM/HG fic ever end up like a
sad attempt at a Food Network flambé, but... well, you get the
drift.

Sorry this is so late. I finished it before the deadline, but
beta'ing and re-writing took time, plus I was on the road. But it's
here! Happy Belated Holidays. :)

Spoilers?
Spoilers up to Prisoner of Azkaban. This takes place during some
unspecified time (either in 4th or 5th year), not exactly following
canon continuity of those years.

Beta'd by: Kyra
and Smoo (THANK YOU SO MUCH!)

Summary: An enchantment at the Shrieking Shack
goes awry, and Draco Malfoy is turned into a helpless puppy. Hermione
might be the only one who can help him change back-- if they can
attempt to get along. Dogs might be a man's best friend, but not a
witch's!

It was a bitterly frozen winter
day, but that hardly stopped the crowds of Hogwarts students from
rudging down the mud-covered path towards Hogsmeade. Each and every
one of them had some sort of plan for what they'd do with this free
time, with the Knuts or Sickles they'd saved up, with the first
freedom they'd tasted in what felt like years.

Butterbeer, for
some. Candy or jokes, for others. Fred and George seemed off in their
own world, plotting something to do with the decimeters of snow piled
just outside Hogsmeade's borders. Snowballing the sledders,
perhaps?

Hermione walked listlessly alongside Harry and Ron,
staring at the falling snowflakes and trying to see if there really
were tiny little patterns on each flake. She half-wondered if she'd
get in trouble for using her wand outside of class –just for fun.
She wanted to summon a mass of flakes on her own, and shape them into
the pretty designs she used to cut out of paper-- back before she was
a witch, before she'd even heard of Hogwarts or Harry Potter or the
four houses.

It seemed like ages ago; Hermione could hardly
remember a time when she wasn't buried in some book, or hard-pressed
to discover some new secret or challenge to overcome. And now here
she was, in the thick of it all --friends with The Boy Who Lived,
considered to be one of the smartest Muggleborn witches in
generations, and...

And...?

That was part of
the problem, then, wasn't it? None of them knew what was going to
happen next, what to expect. They couldn't predict who would win the
next Quidditch match, let alone figure out what was going on with
Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Even lessons were a great big
unknown, and to someone like Hermione Granger, who relied on books
and learning to support her through the great unknown, all the
variables and all the insecurity made her uneasy.

So her
thoughts remained elsewhere, up until the trio came over the crest
near the Shrieking Shack. They hadn't been near it... not since third
year, when Sirius revealed himself as the great black dog that had
been trailing Harry, and--

And a lot of other things, which
made their whole situation all the more complicated.

That was
when they heard it.

A desperate howling, echoing from far in
the distance-- from within the Shrieking Shack.

"Didn't
Lupin say he was the one that gave the Shrieking Shack its name?"
Ron asked nervously, his gaze darting from Harry to
Hermione.

"Yeah," Harry responded slowly, his gaze
never leaving the Shack. "He did. Every full moon when he
changed into a werewolf..."

"He's not there anymore
though, is he? I mean--"

"No," Hermione said,
the first words out of her mouth since they'd left Hogwarts.
"Besides, the moon hasn't even risen yet, and it's not a full
moon tonight anyway."

Of course Hermione would know these
things. Hermione always knew some obscure fact that could help. That
was just the way things were.

It was a ridiculous
notion, to be sure. Worse though, was that no one could really
counter it. If someone were to buy the dilapidated old Shrieking
Shack, could anyone --in Hogsmeade or Hogwarts-- possibly
stop them? There was the problem of the secret entryway
leading from the Whomping Willow right into the house, but since so
few people ever dared to venture near the tree, it probably wasn't a
big deal-- so long as any new owners of the house were normal
wizards.

'"Normal." What does that
mean?' Hermione thought wryly. At one point, she thought herself
the most 'normal' out of anyone at Hogwarts. But then the definition
of normal changed, and Hermione wasn't so sure of anything anymore.
It was rather scary, considering she'd built her whole personality
and attitude on being sure.

Before Hermione could try
and scrounge up a reasonable possibility from the depths of her
brain, a bright white something came bounding down the crest at
impossible speeds. Hermione barely had the chance to open her mouth
before the fence separating the Shrieking Shack's land from the
pathway to Hogsmeade shook wildly, and there was a high-pitched,
yelping howl-- and then Hermione was flat on her back.

"What
the--"

"Get off! Get off!" Ron was saying, but
Hermione's hearing seemed to be muffled-- by the snow, and by
something decidedly warm and fuzzy. Hermionejust barely had the
ability to crane her neck upward-- and she came face to face with the
muzzle of a bright blond puppy with a wet, pink nose. It looked at
her in surprise, but then its eyes closed in what was unmistakably
agony.

Hermione struggled to catch her breath and sit
upright; the dog had fallen unconscious right on top of her, and even
if it was a puppy, it wasstill a rather large puppy, and
it was crushing her rib cage to the point where her breaths were
coming out in short little white puffs. Ron and Harrysuccessfully
managed to ease none too gently, Hermione noted with irritation) the
dog off Hermione's chest, and that was when Ron's voice came again,
this time perfectly loud and clear.

"Hey, Hermione, you
bleeding?"

"What?" Hermione asked in a daze.
Perhaps the cold had gotten to her brain. What else would explain why
she felt so strange right now? Aside fromthe fact that she'd just
been barreled to the ground by a puppy that'd appeared out of
nowhere, that is. "No, I--"

That was when she
spotted it. The puppy's right forepaw was bleeding, likely from
barreling straight through the rotten fence made of sharp wires
andsplintered wood. The ice crystals hanging off every bit of the
old wood probably hadn't help matters either.

Almost
immediately, Hermione's instinct --call it caring or motherly, but
Hermione could never stand to see any animal in pain-- kicked in, and
she righted herself to inspect the dog. No wonder why it had fallen
unconscious. The laceration on its paw must have been the last straw,
after the freezingcold and the muddy fur clinging to its skinny
form.

'His skinny form,' Hermione
corrected itself. With the dog lying on its side like that, it was
impossible not to notice the dog's gender, or the fact that, unlike
most dogs Hermione encountered --back in the Muggle world-- this one
wasn't fixed. But there was no collar or other identification on its
neck, so that ruled out Ron's idea that it was a pet dog of some
sort.

And after learning that Sirius was an Animagus, it was
entirely possible that this wasn't really a dog at all.

Hermione
blushed to the roots of her hair, remembering that she'd just been
peeping at the dog's under parts. If it wasn't a dog at all,
then--!

"Help me bring him to Hogwarts," Hermione
instructed, having regained her composure. She gestured to the boys,
hoping they'd help with the dog's rear paws while she managed with
the front. Of course, that would mean the dog's injured forepaw and
wet, icy nose would be nuzzled against her stomach, but no mind-- she
had to help the poor creature.

"Hermione, are you sure
about this?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"What if it
was Snuffles?" Hermione bit out after a moment. "You don't
know where this poor creature came from, and even if it was some
Animagusin disguise, or an agent of Voldemort, the safest place
we could bring it --him-- is Hogwarts." Hermione defiantly
ignored Ron's cringe; he hated itwhenever Hermione said the Dark
Lord's name, but as far as Hermione was concerned, fear of a name was
the most ridiculous thing in the world.

"But if it is
a Death Eater or something, are you sure--" Ron began, but
Hermione cut him off with an abrupt wave of her hand. Now that
shehad found something to focus on, she was entirely positive of
what she had to do.

Hermione
scowled at the redhead and eased the front half of the dog up so she
could lift him. "As opposed to nobody helping us-- yes."
Andthat was the end of that.

As skilled as Madam Pomfrey
was, her talents in veterinary medicine were somewhat lacking. Only
five minutes after Ron, Harry, and Hermione levitatedthe puppy
all the way up to the medical wing back at Hogwarts, she shook her
head and told them they'd have better luck asking Hagrid. She'd given
them a few wraps for the dog's paw, but she warned them that any
salve intended for humans probably wouldn't help the dog much.

Hermione sadly agreed, and re-cast Wingardium Leviosa
before pushing the floating dog back out the medical wing
door.

Luckily, Hagrid happened to be in his cabin that day,
rather than drinking it up at Madam Rosmerta's down in Hogsmeade. But
with the way he kept on poking at the dog like it was some sort of
new species of magical creature, Hermione and the others couldn't
help but doubt if Hagrid would really be of any help.

"Bit
of a runt, i'n't he?" Hagrid said. Fang seemed to agree; the
moment Harry, Hermione, and Ron had stumbled in with the unconscious
dog in their arms, Fang pranced around them, slobbering over
absolutely everybody and everything. It was no wonder; it wasn't as
if anyone else had magical dogs for familiars at Hogwarts. Likely,
this strange newcomer from the Shrieking Shack was the first dog Fang
had ever seen! But Fang was at least twice the size of the puppy, and
was more a danger to it than a friend.

Hermione briefly
wondered why she'd never heard of plain old magical dogs. Why weren't
there dogs as familiars? Everyone had an owl, and almost everyone had
some sort of familiar if their owl didn't already count)-- Neville
had his toad, Ron had his rat, and Hermione herself had rookshanks
the cat. But why did no one at Hogwarts have a magical
dog?

'Maybe...' Hermione thought with a
measure of excitement. 'There had never been a
magical dog before. Maybe this one is the first!'

True,
it was a little far-fetched --wasn't there something about dogs with
forked tails in the wizarding world?-- but once Hermione let herself
get hopeful, her optimism wouldn't die down. She waited while Hagrid
proceeded to tend its injuries, when there was a sudden, snorting
sound from the dog.

All at once, everyone --even Fang--
became quiet and stared at it. Slowly, it's the dog's eyes
opened-- eyes that were a startling shade of cloud grey. They seemed
unfocused at first, but the moment the dog had blinked a few times,
it seemed to realize that five very large heads --only four of them
human-- were hovering over him, it yelped. It scrambled backward off
the makeshift cot Hagrid had prepared for it, scattering a number of
pots and containers along the way. It hadn't realized until too late
that the use of its forepaw was limited, and in trying to get away,
it created a ruckus that even Fred and George Weasley would have been
proud of.

So horrible was the mess that it was practically
impossible to get out of the cabin to chase after the dog, who had
managed to nose open the door and was trying to scamper off back
toward the Shrieking Shack. Hermione, determined not to let the
injured and possibly magical dog get away, stumbled over canisters of
spilled who-knows-what and dashed out of Hagrid's cabin, heedless of
Ron and Harry calling after her.

Though in most cases, four legs
are faster than two, when one of those four legs is injured badly, it
doesn't do much extra good to have the additionallimbs. Such was
the case for the blond dog, who was feebly trying to limp away as
fast as he could. The whole affair had him more than a bit shaken up:
he didn't like being covered in fur, he didn't like having four legs
--one of them bum, too!-- and he certainly didn't like how everything
was all wrong right now, starting with the fact that the
Mudblood's face had been the first one he'd woken up to. That would
have given anyone a heart attack.

For you see, the blond dog
that Hermione was so relentlessly pursuing was no ordinary dog. She'd
been right in thinking that it was magical, but it was no boarhound
like Fang, no three-headed hellhound like Fluffy, and no harbinger of
death like the mythical Grim. This dog, that for all intents and
purposes, was a Golden Retriever with an unusual eye color was
actually none other than Draco Malfoy.

But Draco Malfoy wasn't
an unregistered Animagus. Quite truthfully, Draco was of the opinion
that animals --magical or otherwise-- were lower life forms, and
while it could certainly be useful to transform into one, it
was also very degrading. Disgusting, even! So even if he'd had the
ability to turn into an animal, a dog wouldn't have been Draco's
first choice. The truth was that he'd gone and done something very
stupid-- and he knew it.

He'd broken into the Shrieking Shack
on a dare of sorts. It was to prove once and for all that Malfoys had
no fear, and that whatever stupid Granger thought she knew
about all the magical places in the world wasn't true. She seemed to
think she knew everything, including just how the Shrieking Shack got
its name. She stubbornly insisted that it went further back than
their parents' generations, but Draco refused to believe anything she
said. She was just a Mudblood --a dirty, Muggleborn witch who thought
she knew it all.

Draco aimed to prove her wrong and put her
in her place for once. But of course, he had to learn the rather hard
and painful and quite a bit embarrassing) way that Granger was always
right.

Of course the Shrieking Shack had all sorts of magical
charms and booby traps about it... and now he was stuck as a dog, for
who knows how long! At least he knew one thing, though-- whatever
spell the Shack had put on him to transform him into a dog lasted
several hours at least, and it didn't seem to matter that Draco was
on Hogwarts -and not Hogsmeade- grounds.

But the last thing
he could possibly do was stay in the company of that imbecile Hagrid,
the annoying Weasel, The Boy Who Lived, and the Mudblood. Ifany
of them found out what had happened to him...

No, there would
be simply no walking away from it. He would shame his family for
centuries. A Malfoy dog? How revolting. With this thought
firmly in mind, he kept limping away, hoping that none of the band of
three would be dumb enough to follow him. He chanced a glance
backward just to make sure, and his heart leapt up --or rather,
horizontally, considering he wasn't walking upright anymore-- his
throat. Stupid Mudblood Granger was right behind him.

Draco
the dog turned and tried to run faster; if he didn't focus on Granger
and her scampering along behind him, maybe he could make it. Of
course the best route would be to cut through the Forbidden Forest,
but Draco had already had his fair share of scares in and around that
place, and he liked toavoid it if he could. But there was no
telling when and it would be when, not if)
he'd get back to being himself again, and he couldn't possibly be on
Hogwarts where someone could see him when it happened.

"H-Hey!"
Hermione called out. Draco the dog stumbled on his injured forepaw.
He hated being a dog. Though his fur offered an extra layer of
warmthagainst the icy cold, he didn't like how everything was all
in black and white, and how sounds and smells seemed to be stronger
than ever before. It was all very overwhelming. He did his best to
ignore Hermione, but the pain shooting up his leg eventually caught
up to him, and he stumbled into the snow bank just ahead.

It
didn't take long for Hermione to catch up with the fallen puppy, much
to the dog's own dismay. But Hermione had words ready for the dog,
snapping at it as though she expected it to talk back to her.

'Stupid Mudblood,' Draco thought distastefully.
'What kind of a person talks to dog?' Then
again, the thought was rather saddening. No matter what Draco did, no
one would think he was anything more than a stray canine. Assuming
the charm that had turned him into a dog in the first place didn't
wear off on its own and there was no telling when that would happen,
if at all), then there was hardly any hope for him, was there? After
all, he couldn't exactly hold a wand, or talk...

"Fine
then, you want to run away after we made all that effort to help you
out," Hermione was saying in a breathless voice. Draco looked up
at herwith his cloud-colored eyes and realized that, despite his
color blindness, Granger did look a little bit better in the
winter frost. For one, thecold and the fog caused her normally
bushy hair to lay in loose waves against her shoulders, rather than
in a great frizzy mess behind her head. And she seemed a bit flushed
in the cheeks, probably from running.

Draco shook his head
vehemently to rid himself of what he deemed utterly foolish thoughts.
Side effects of turning into a dog, or somesuch. Wasn't there
something about animals getting attached to the first human they saw?
No, that was baby birds. But still!

"...At least let me
take you back to the Shack, you silly dog," Hermione muttered.
"You'll probably be safer there than outside in the cold, at any
rate."

Draco protested this idea mightily, knowing that
it was something in the Shack that had caused him to change in the
first place. But... she was right. Hecouldn't stay at Hogwarts,
and there was nowhere else for him to go. At the very least, if he
was cautious enough, he might be able to find out whatever it was
that had changed him in the first place, and figure out how to get it
to transform him back!

The growl that had started to burble
in Draco's throat died a quick death, and he settled for merely
glaring at Hermione as she approached. He was in far too much pain to
really growl or even nip at her, and if he did that, his best chance
at getting out of this blasted dog's body would be shot to hell. Even
Draco had to admit it-- Granger was one of the better students in
their year, knowing charms and spells far more advanced than the rest
of them. Maybe, just maybe...

Hermione only continued to
surprise Draco. For starters, she hefted him up entirely on her own.
She managed to walk across a good portion of the Hogwarts grounds
before she carefully put him down and looked thoughtful. When she
produced her wand from her robes, Draco whimpered involuntarily, but
Hermione's smile disarmed him. And then the spell was cast.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Draco struggled for
a moment as he was magically lifted up off the ground, paws dangling
every-which way. Hermione was still smiling at him after she put her
wand away again and started rubbing her arms. After a moment, she
sighed and merely said "Come on then" before pushing Draco
the dog along by his hindquarters. Draco fumbled and protested with
this arrangement at first, but considering he wasn't wearing a
collar, there seemed no better way of doing it without hurting him
further.

'Not as long as she
thinks I'm a dog anyway,' Draco thought. If Hermione were to
discover he was really her best friend's hated rival, well...

It
didn't take too long before Hermione reached the Whomping Willow. Its
branches weren't moving nearly as fast as usual because of the cold,
Dracosupposed, but that hardly meant the tree wasn't lethal.
Without any leaves on the massive branches, that meant getting hit
would instantly knock the wind out of you-- or worse. There was
nothing to cushion you against the brute force of the tree, which had
been planted generations before exclusively to prevent people from
taking the secret passageway to the Shrieking Shack to find Remus
Lupin there-- as a werewolf.

Of course, Draco Malfoy didn't
know about any of that, and the closer they got to the tree, the more
anxious he got. Much to his astonishment (Hermione missed a rather
amusing attempt on Draco's part to contort his new facial muscles
into a mask of fear), she levitated a nearby rock and sent it
hurtling toward a knot on the tree. The whipping branches abruptly
stopped in their tracks, frozen.

"Come on, then,"
Hermione repeated, pushing Draco once more. His eyes only widened
further under his furry eyebrows as Hermione nudged him toward an
opening near the base of the tree that Draco had never known existed.
He made it a point to discover as many secret passageways and paths
in Hogwarts as possible, but he'd never known about this one!

The
passageway under the Whomping Willow was dank and dirty.. It didn't
look like it could collapse on itself anytime soon; the massive roots
of the Willow grew in such a fashion that they supported the tunnel
and the kilos of dirt surrounding it. It only took a few moments
before the tunnel curved upward and a faint light shone down. The
disgustingly familiar smell of dust and decay assaulted Draco's finer
senses, and he very nearly sneezed.

They were back at the
Shrieking Shack.

Hermione only glanced up the dusty staircase
once before sighing deeply and turning in the other direction. She
kept Draco hovering in front of her upuntil they reached a dank
living room. It looked familiar enough, but Draco was having a hard
time remembering just where he'd been when he realized something
strange and horrible was happening to him. And of course, that meant
that Granger was right—the Shrieking Shack did have some great
mystery behind it, but stuck as a dog, Draco had little to no chance
of finding out what that mystery was.

Hermione didn't seem to
mind the dust half so much as he did, as she went shuffling about
looking for something. At last she returned with an ancient and tiny
cauldron in one hand, her wand in the other. Draco half wondered what
she planned to do with him, if she had no idea just who he was. To
his surprise, Hermione didn't even look at him as she murmured
"Aguamenti!" and a fountain of pure, clear water
gushed from her wand tip.

'T-That annoying mudblood!
That's NEWT level magic!' She was such a
show-off. Draco hated admitting there was anything he couldn't do or
didn't know, and that arrogance was what had gotten him into this
mess in the first place.

Hermione waved her wand again and the
stream of water stopped at once. The cauldron was filled about
three-quarters of the way up, and Hermione hung it on the dowel in
the nearby fireplace. It probably hadn't been used in ages, if the
soot and grime covering the grate was any indication.

'Granger's
not like other girls,' Draco noted. Not like Pansy, who would
have refused to even set foot in the Shrieking Shack for all the
legends about the place-- not to mention all the dust and dirt.
Hermione didn't seem to mind in the least getting her hands dirty,
even if it was to help an enemy.

'But she doesn't have to
know that,' Draco reminded himself. If she did know, she'd
probably be more disgusted with herself than if she inadvertently
touched a dead rat or something. And then he'd be piss out of luck,
with no one to help him get back to his normal form. There was simply
no way Draco could just wait all on his own, to see
if the charm wore off in time.

Draco felt the slightest bit
guilty upon realizing this; Hermione was his only hope, and if he
messed things up in the slightest...

"Incendio!"
Hermione waved her wand again, and a roaring fire burst to life in
the fireplace. The flames tickled and licked the base of the auldron
until tiny bubbles appeared within the water. Hermione carefully
removed the cauldron from its place and took a few mostly-clean rags
she'd found lying around and dipped them in the warm water. At last,
the rags were grime free, and Hermione moved toward Draco.

He
growled softly, but Hermione only chastised him with a Look. Truth be
told, The Look was something Draco recognized all too well, because
he'd seen it on both his father's and mother's faces. It was the kind
of expression that reprimanded him without words, the kind of
wordless way of saying "Youhave made a GRAVE mistake."
So Draco silenced himself and allowed Hermione to rub the warm cloths
up and down his fur, removing the bit of grime and blood that had
gotten stuck in it since his first escape from the shack.

The
fire continued to roar and glow brightly, even as the cool winter sun
outside set below the horizon, inviting the darkness. All the while,
Hermionetalked to him about various things-- mostly her wondering
aloud about 'magical dogs' and why this was the first time she'd seen
any sort of a dog anywhere in Hogsmeade, let alone near the Shrieking
Shack. She seemed to stop herself at one point to add "Well,
except for Snuf-- but then, I suppose he didn't really count."
Draco had no idea who or what 'Snuf' was, and he wasn't altogether
curious. In fact, Hermione's ministrations were actually quite
pleasant...

"I guess I can't keep calling you Dog or
Pooch, then. In the Muggle world, people give all sorts of names to
their pets, but then, that's true of the Wizarding world, too. Then,
I've never heard of anyone naming an owl 'Rover' or
anything..."

Draco crossed his injured forepaw over his
uninjured one, and rested his head on the juncture. He was feeling
rather nice at this point, and almostforgetting about being stuck
as a fur-covered fleabag. But of course, Malfoys didn't have fleas!
Not even accidental Malfoy dogs!) He just wanted Hermione to keep
rubbing him with those warm cloths, not talk to him...

'How about you call me by my name, you stupid girl?'
Draco thought to himself.

All at once, the warm rubbing
stopped, and Draco opened his cloud grey eyes. He turned his head to
the side, and saw Hermione no longer sitting beside him, but standing
up with a look of pure and absolute rage on her face.

"Did
I say that out loud?" Draco wondered. It came to his
astonishment alone when he heard his voice --his own voice--
distinctly coming from a throat that was still covered in fur.

"Yes
you did, Malfoy," Hermione responded viciously. She
drew her wand and was pointing it at him, but if the way her hand was
trembling wasany indication, she was so surprised that she had no
idea what to do.

"H-Hey," Draco protested,
stumbling as he tried to rise to his four feet, "You don't have
to hex me or anything."

"Y-You... all this
time...!" Hermione stuttered, her face growing even redder. She
plunged her wand back into her robes and turned around toleave
the way she'd come, but Draco's voice stopped her a millimeter from
the Whomping Willow's passageway.

"Wait! Come on now,
Granger, I didn't mean it!"

"Didn't mean it?"
Hermione echoed hollowly. "Didn't mean it?"

Draco
walked up to her and tried to look as irritated as a dog could. "I'm
the one stuck in a dog's body, and you're getting a little irritated
over asilly name?"

"SILLY?" Hermione
shouted, to the point where dust fell from the rusty hall chandelier
above them. "So you think calling me names is silly? That maybe
the next time you call me a disgusting, filthy spawn upon wizarding
society, I should just laugh and walk away?"

"What,
you mean 'Mudblood'?" Draco asked quizzically. Hermione didn't
even bother with an answer; she just let out a frustrated growl and
startedmarching back into the darkness.

"I won't
ever call you a single name ever again, Granger!" Draco shouted.
"Come back and help me--" He was sure she was already well
and gone by now, and he was stuck in this dank, dusty house with fur
all over him. "Please."

To his surprise, his ears
picked up the faint sound of steps crunching on old soil. He glanced
up, and there amongst the shades of black and white and grey was
Hermione Granger, staring at him coldly.

"Only
because you said please," she uttered in a low voice. "And
you'd better promise."

"I promise," Draco
repeated. He hated promising anyone anything, least of all a Mudb-- a
Muggleborn witch. But she was the only one here,and the
only one with decent enough intelligence who he might actually be
able to trust to keep this secret once they'd solved this
little problem of his.

"Do you really think I would just
believe you, just like that? Give me one good reason why I should
trust you, Draco Malfoy, after everythingyou've said and
done to me and my friends."

"Because loyalty isn't
just a trait of the Gryffindors, you know!" Draco bit out before
he could stop himself. Hermione's eyebrows raised in surprise and
suspicion, but she didn't say anything. Draco dared to continue, "The
whole point of houses is to foster loyalty, isn't it? Each house is
loyal in its own way, and they'll each keep their promises if they
make them. Slytherins just happen to be loyal to those that can help
them-- and you can help me."

The way he said it sounded
so arrogant and assured that Hermione was tempted to leave again. But
then again-- he was sort of complimenting her. Sort of.

"What
makes you think I can do anything to help you?" she asked. Part
of her admonished her barely veiled attempt at fishing for
compliments, butcoming from what would have otherwise been Draco
Malfoy's foul mouth, Hermione hardly minded. Perhaps if the boy used
honeyed words more often than vinegar-laced ones, he wouldn't have
made such enemies out of everyone not in his own house.

"Because
you're here, for one!" Draco barked (and there was a bit of a
true bark in his voice) out. "And..." He looked away,
almost embarrassed. He pretended he'd spotted a doxy flitting about,
and refused to meet Hermione's gaze. "You're the smartest one in
our year. You know more about this place, about spells and charms
than most of the people at school."

Hermione was still
quiet, and for a moment, Draco wondered if she'd stormed off again.
But when he looked over to meet her, she was still standing there.
Her arms were no longer crossed over her chest, and the frown on her
face had been replaced with a knowing --and altogether smug-- smile.

"Flattery won't get you very far with me, Malfoy, but I
will help you figure out what's gone wrong here. I don't
know if I can fix it, but atleast we'll have a start. Then maybe
we could go back to Hogwarts and--"

"NO!"

"No?"

"No,"
Draco lowered his voice and hung his head. "No one can find out
about this. Not the Weasel, not Potter, not anyone!"

"You
promised not to call names--"

"If I promised not to
call them names, it would be a little too suspicious, don't
you think?" Draco pointed out wryly. Hermione acquiescedthis
point, and started speaking again.

"I won't tell them,
then. Besides, I was thinking of a teacher, like Professor
McGonagall, or maybe Professor Snape--"

"No, no,
no!"

"But McGonagall knows everything about
Transfiguration, and perhaps if it was some sort of potion that
changed you--"

"It wasn't. I-I think it was a charm
or something, but before you say it, NO to Professor Flitwick,
either. If any of the teachers got wind of this, someone
from Slytherin would find out for sure, and if they did, my father
would, and absolutely everything would be ruined. Think of my honor,
would you, Granger?"

"The same loyalty I have to those that help
me, I have to my family, Granger. You can understand that, can't you?
Isn't that why you always got sooffended at being called a
Mudblood?"

Hermione was silent. She supposed Malfoy was
right-- and that had to be a first.

"I can't let my
family name be disgraced all because I did something stupid and got
turned into a filthy dog--"

"You aren't filthy!"
Hermione looked so offended, Draco half wondered if she thought he'd
been insulting her attempts at washing him. He was about tocorrect
her on what he meant, but she spoke first, her voice still stuttering
and her cheeks a decidedly unnatural dark color. "I-I meant dogs
aren'tfilthy. They're wonderful creatures. And it could have been
much worse. You could have been Transfigured into a leech or a slug
or something."

This time, it was Draco's turn to concede
that Hermione was right-- again.

"They're stupid,"
he muttered, but Hermione still heard him.

"They are
not! It's been proven that dogs are some of the smarter mammals on
the planet, and they're friendly and sweet, and fun to cuddle
with,and--"

"So is that what you do when you go
back to the Muggle world, is it? Spend time cuddling with a mangy dog
when you can't be with the Weasel orPotter?"

Hermione
fixed him with a glare so icy cold, Draco would have sworn the fire
in the grate had gone out. He muttered under his breath and tucked
his forepaws together again, refusing to meet Hermione's gaze.

"Well then, that's a start."
She got up and started looking around. "Do you remember where
you first got Transfigured?"

Draco shook his head. "Can't
really. Might have been this room, but--"

Before he could
finish, Hermione started walking about all the rooms.

'Stupid
girl! If she gets Transfigured into a dog too, there'll be no hope
for me at all!' He rose to chase after her, but his front
forepaw startedto smart with pain, and he fell back to the floor
with a whimper. For several minutes, there was hardly any sound
within the Shrieking Shack. No screams, no howls-- nothing like Draco
remembered when he'd discovered what had happened to him. Likely the
sound had terrified Crabbe and Goyle away from their waiting post
outside the Shack, and they hadn't dared to speak of what they didn't
know to anyone.

'Fools!' If at least they'd ventured
to go into the house, Draco might have been able to let them know
what happened to him... or something. On the other hand, Crabbe and
Goyle were far from the smartest Slytherins, and if they had
found out about Draco's transformation, it might have been worse
before it got better.

In any case, there was nothing. And a
few minutes after that, Hermione walked back into the room, still
very much a human female. Draco never thought he would be so relieved
to see her.

"Well, I didn't find any obvious charms.
Whatever did it to you must be embedded into the walls of the house,
and I suspect it only targets those withWizarding blood in them.
This is a very old house, you know."

"Yes,"
Draco admitted under his breath. "I know." After all, it
was his attempt to prove Granger wrong about the house that had led
him here on a dare in the first place.

"What day is
today?"

"Saturday," Draco responded irritably.
"But what's that got to do with anything?"

"The
moon!" Hermione exclaimed in awe. "It's a full moon!"
She flung away a moth-eaten old curtain from the window and allowed
the brightmoonlight to stream in, ignoring the cloud of dust that
burst from the folds with the sudden movement. Draco made a noise
that was a cross between a bark and a cough and stared at her.

"I
thought you dropped out of Divination. Since when does the position
of the moon have anything to do with what's happened to me? I'm a
bloody talking dog, not a werewolf--!"

"That's the
whole point, Malfoy," Hermione snapped, though there
was no true irritation or malice in her voice. Instead, she both
looked and sounded triumphant, as if she'd solved the whole
mystery already. "I don't know about the Shrieking Shack's whole
history, but I know it was here during your parents' generation. And
the Whomping Willow was planted during the year Professor Lupin
came--"

"The werewolf? What--?"

Hermione
ignored him and barreled on. "His transformation every full moon
is what gave the Shrieking Shack its name. Transforming into a
werewolf isn't exactly painless, I'm sure-- and a dog probably isn't
much better, but at least it makes sense!"

"And if you were a bloody
two-legged human, I'm sure you'd stand a much better chance against a
werewolf, wouldn't you?" Hermione retorted sarcastically.

"W-What, you mean there's a werewolf here?"

"Of
course not. Professor Lupin was the last one that I knew of, anyway.
But if they brought in a magical tree to protect the passageway to
this house,it makes sense that they'd charm the house too,
right?"

"Right..."

"And since
humans don't possess the senses nearly as good as a werewolf's,
whoever charmed the place must have decided on the next best thing--
creatures with extraordinary senses of smell and sound, small enough
to escape through any openings, and quick enough to run from a
werewolf, if it spotted them."

"So that's
why I'm a dog?"

"It's better than nothing, isn't
it?" Hermione asked. "And I suppose the only reason why you
changed prior to the full moon is because the charm is getting old.
Since the sun went down and the moon rose, you've been able to talk,
so that's another clue that something's wrong with the charm."

"But
if there's something wrong with it, who's to say that I'll
change back once the full moon is over?"

Hermione cast
him a guilty look. "Well... I don't know that part. It would
make sense for the charm to wear off once the moon set, but it's
possible thatsomething's gone wrong. You might be stuck until the
moon wanes more fully, or until the night before the next full
moon..."

"That's a whole month, Granger! I can't
spend another MINUTE in this form, let alone a whole month!"

"Well if all you're going to do is complain about it, I
have no reason for sticking around then, do I? Not like you calling
me names is really incentive enough, is it? You can just stay here
and lick yourself until you change back!" Hermione rose to her
feet and started to walk out of the room, butDraco barked her
name pleadingly, and she stopped.

"Hermione!" Not
'Mudblood' or even 'Granger'... but 'Hermione.' And he'd said it with
a genuine sense of urgency, need even.

She turned around on
stiff legs and faced Draco. "If it weren't for the fact that my
Muggle parents always taught me to help someone in need, I
wouldn't be turning around for the second time."

Draco
attempted to smile feebly and gratefully, but it is very hard for
dogs to smile, and when they try to do so, they tend to look very
awkward indeed. However, Hermione managed to spot Draco's attempt
nonetheless, and she broke out into a fit of giggles. The smile
disappeared from Draco's furry face, and he growled at her under his
breath once more.

"Oh, that was funny!" Hermione
laughed, her cheeks growing darker still. "You should really try
to smile more often- Rover!"

"Hey! My name's Draco
Malfoy, thank you very much, and you can call me as such!"

"Oh,
of course, your royal DOGLINESS," Hermione mocked in a fake
curtsy. As soon as her head bobbed up, she started giggling again.

"I don't mean one of those arrogant 'I'm
right and you're wrong' sort of smiles," Hermione clarified. "I
meant a genuine, 'I'm happy, and it's not because someone else is
suffering at my expense' sort of smile."

"What kind
of smile is that, now?" Draco joked. Despite being a canine,
Hermione seemed to detect the undertone in Draco's voice, and she
smiled. Draco would have smiled in kind --just to prove that he
could-- but the last thing he wanted was Hermione to be laughing at
him again. He hated beinglaughed at.

But for some odd
reason, he did seem to like the sound of Hermione's laughter. It
wasn't too nasally like some of the other Slytherin girls. It
wasn'tsnorting like Pansy's (when she thought something was
particularly hysterical), and it wasn't screeching like Peeves's
laugh. In fact, it was... quite nice.

Hermione seemed to be growing
sleepy as the hours wore on. They continued to talk, occasionally
interjecting what they knew of the Shack, Transfiguration charms, and
other assorted things, but nothing ended up panning out. The moon had
set. Hogwarts was likely abuzz with rumors of what had happened to
the smartest Muggleborn witch the school had seen in generations, and
Slytherin was probably busy spreading all sorts of rumors about where
Draco had gone. Hopefully, no one put two and two together and
decided that if Hermione and Draco were both missing, they must be
together.

Draco dared to glance at Hermione, who had
made a number of failed attempts to get comfortable. The old
furniture was covered with so much dust, dirt, soot, or combination
thereof that she didn't even want to try sitting in the nearby
armchair; the floor was rotting and just as bad, and who knew about
any sprites or doxies that might be floating about, ready to bite?
Hermione had glanced once at him, completely sleepy-eyed and likely
delirious, looking at Draco as if he'd make a fine pillow.

As
he was, Draco might have been disinclined to disagree with her--
after he'd been thoroughly cleaned by Hermione's warm rags, he
supposed his blond fur really was rather nice and soft, though the
tip of his still wet, pink nose hardly offered the same sort of
sensations as his once-human hands had.

He was about to fall
asleep in front of the still-roaring and warm fire, hoping that he'd
wake up the next morning in his own bed, in his own body, with all of
this being a frightfully strange and stupid dream, when all of a
sudden, Hermione bolted up, looking completely awake. She didn't look
the least bitstartled, although her hair still managed to look a
cross between her usual bushy and the damp-soaked tousled that Draco
was finding he rather liked. She had the kind of hair he might like
to tangle his hands in...

But what a stupid thought. And what
a stupid look on her face!

"I've got it," Hermione
said in a low whisper. Then her gaze turned to Draco, and the
seriousness of it had his ears and tail twitching. He didn't like
having a tail, but the odd look on Hermione's face seemed to incite
something in him that made him want to jump. Damn it all, he was
spending toomuch time like this! He was beginning to think crazy
things!

"The charm was only intended for a house
occupied once a month by a werewolf, to protect pureblooded wizards
who happened to find their way into the Shack. They'd get
Transfigured into something that would allow them to hear and smell
the wolf, and probably outrun it through a small enough space to go
back to wherever they'd come in from."

"You already
said all that before," Draco mumbled sleepily.

"The
charm didn't work on me because I didn't break into the house like
you did, Malfoy," Hermione whispered. "I'm sure there must
have beensomething about the charm to protect any Muggles that
snuck in, because it wouldn't be fair if they got turned into
werewolf food either, would it?"

"S'pose
not."

Hermione rolled her eyes, but continued speaking.
"But the whole point of the charm was that you would get changed
into something you're not used to, to run away from something you
shouldn't have seen. It's meant to scare you."

Draco
didn't really understand where she'd drawn that conclusion from, but
he supposed it made sense. Somehow. Perhaps in a world where things
weren't black and white, and where dust didn't smell ten times worse
than normal...

"Don't you get it, Malfoy? The whole
point of the charm is to scare you from ever coming back to the
house! If you're terrified enough, running awayfast enough, with
a genuine desire to get away and to never come back... the charm will
release."

"Are you sure?"

"Well...
no," Hermione admitted. "But it sounds reasonable. And
there's only one way to find out."

Draco let out a
barking laugh. "And how's that? Neither of us are werewolves,
and I doubt there's enough doxies in this house to scare me."

Hermione was silent a moment before she stood up, her back
turned toward Draco. She seemed to be clenching her fists at her
side, standing rather rigid and tall, but Draco couldn't tell in the
dimming firelight.

"Promise me that you'll run."

"Granger, what are you going on about? There's not
really a werewolf here anymore--"

"Just promise
me!" She didn't turn around.

"All right,"
Draco said slowly. "I promise." He knew he was going to
sound awfully stupid for what came out of his mouth next, but he
couldn't help it. Probably more of the innate "dog brain"
creeping into his behavior. "But what about you?"

Then,
Hermione did turn around, and she wore a rather disturbing smile on
her face. "I'll be fine."

"You won't even tell
me what the hell's going on in your bushy head! How the hell am I
supposed to know you're going to be fine?" Draco
demanded.

Hermione was tempted to laugh, for all the
expressions she was seeing on this supposed-puppy's face. A puppy
with Draco Malfoy's voice, of course. ut now that she'd gotten an
idea --now that she knew what to do to get them both out of this
mess-- she was dead-set on seeing it through. But she couldn't tell
Draco, because if he knew, he wouldn't be afraid... and he had to be
terrified enough never to come back, if her theory was right, and
this was to work.

It was very unnerving to have Draco's
insults all parroted back at him. He realized now just how much it
probably bothered Hermione to constantly beridiculed for one
thing or another. He also realized that he'd been the one jeering her
most of the time, and that each time, she'd controlled herself where
he couldn't, never showing her anger and instead bottling it all up
inside.

What a git he was!

"WHAT. ABOUT. YOU,"
Draco repeated harshly. He supposed that if he'd been human, he might
have been clenching his firsts till his knuckles werewhite, and
gritting his teeth loudly. But as it was, only one of his forepaws
had his claws extended, the other being too wrapped up and sore to
even try.

"Tell you what," Hermione started in that
same falsely bright voice. "When I come running and screaming
'Go!' you'll listen to me. You won't ask questions, and you won't
look back."

Draco stared at her suspiciously, cocking
his head to the side and trying his damnedest to raise his
oddly-shaped doggy-eyebrows in order to get hisexpression across.
"Sounds all right enough..."

"Good, then I'll
be off--" Hermione began, starting up the stairs.

"But
what about you? What kind of stupid thing are you going to do to help
me when I don't even deserve it?" Draco interrupted her.

Hermione wheeled around on the second stair, her movements so
quick that a small cloud of dust erupted around her feet.

"Don't
be giving me lip now when you were literally whining earlier about
how horrid it is to be stuck in a dog's body! If Slytherins are
supposed to have some redeeming features, then determination ought to
be one of them, too!" Hermione looked flushed and out of breath
again, but she kept on shouting. "I promised you I'd help you,
and I'm not leaving here until you're back to normal-- and you
promised me too! So promise me again --on yourpureblood family
honor and loyalty, for all that it's worth to you! Promise me you'll
do as you're told JUST THIS ONCE!"

Were her words
magical, Draco supposed he might have stumbled backwards from the
force of them, but as it was, his paws were firmly rooted on the
dirty floor.

"Just wait by the Willow hole, and be ready
to run no matter what."

Draco nodded silently and watched
as Hermione disappeared up the stairs and into the grey. He didn't
have too much time to wonder what the hell Hermione was thinking or
why she'd go so far for him after all that he'd said and
done-- more to Potter and Weasley, really, but...

Hermione reached the room and
paused just inside the door frame. It was a crazy idea, but she hoped
that it would work. She wished and prayed that it would work,
because... well, it wasn't as though she was getting sick of Draco
Malfoy's presence. Rather, he was actually somewhat interesting
company, and he did make a rather cute dog.

But as
she'd told him, she promised to get him out of this mess, and now
that she had an idea, she wanted to see if it would work. There was
no other way-- they couldn't go back to Hogwarts and tell the
professors; they couldn't go into Hogsmeade-- there was no way of
contacting anyone, because they simply didn't have the means. So they
were stuck --alone, with only each other for company and ideas--
until Draco the Dog became Draco the Annoying Slytherin Git once
more.

'He hasn't been all too annoying, I suppose,'
Hermione amended mentally. But for all the promises she'd managed to
extricate from Draco's lips, she wasn't sure how long she could
believe in them. Part of her wanted to --desperately, actually-- but
she couldn't possibly hold out false hope. He'd keep this last
promise she'd had him make, that was for sure-- but after that,
assuming all went well... then everything would just go back to
normal.

'There's that word again. "Normal."
What does it mean, anyway?' These were thoughts Hermione had
entertained earlier, just before she'd gotten barreled in the chest
by a dirty and paranoid Golden Retriever puppy. A puppy who'd turned
out to be Draco Malfoy...

Well, 'Normal' for Hermione, she
supposed, meant going back to her classes, studying fastidiously,
staying with Ron and Harry and helping them with their schoolwork,
for they would always fall behind in one subject or another, and
Hermione simply couldn't stand to see anyone in distress --human or
dog!) and... being called 'Mudblood' by Slytherin's finest.

"It
won't bother me," Hermione smiled falsely, but since there was
no one in the room to see her feeble attempt, it went wasted.
Hermione herselfknew she was lying; she knew she hated being
called names and labeled. But... she was strong. She could get over
it in time. In time, she wouldn't evenremember all this.

So
Hermione edged towards a great, dusty chest with a broken lock and
peeling covering. The box shuddered as she neared it, and Hermione
very nearly hesitated. But no, she had to do this-- she had to see it
through. She pulled out her wand and positioned herself carefully--
in a place where she could open the box and still make a bee-line for
the door in a matter of seconds.

'Please let this work,
please let this work--!' And then she opened the chest.

"RUN!"

Draco
turned toward the sound of Hermione's voice --her scream, actually,
as she came tearing down the stairs at breakneck speeds. One didn't
need to have a superior sense of smell or sound to see how flushed
she was, how she was beginning to sweat, and how her breath was
coming out of her lips in short, quick puffs. She'd been running
awfully fast, and from something awfully...

He never finished
the thought. He could smell something far different from Hermione's
distinct scent (though he didn't know just when he'd first
smelledher 'distinctly' and then gotten so used to that smell, as
if it was something sweet and alluring) of dust and old parchment
paper-- and whatever soap she must have used in her hair. No, this
was an altogether different scent, something that was sending all the
bells and alarms off in his head--

A werewolf.

"No
time to ask questions, Malfoy, GO!" And then Hermione was at his
side and they were tripping over fallen pieces of wood and discarded
rags, asnarling, panting werewolf thundering after them.

'How
the bloody hell did she get a werewolf?' It didn't make sense,
not a lick of sense-- but at least she was safe. At least she was
running right beside--

"Don't slow down, you fool! Come
on, Granger!" he barked at her, noticing that Hermione had
started to fall behind. But she was onlyhuman, while he
was a dog. She didn't have the strength or the means to get away from
something as fast and as terrifying as a werewolf. That was why the
charm existed in the first place...

"I SAID COME ON!"
Draco turned around and grabbed a portion of Hermione's robes with
his teeth, urging her forward until she was runningalongside him
again.

Why was this tunnel so long? He could have sworn it
was so much shorter than this...! He could still hear the werewolf
behind them, panting and snarling. It was bloodthirsty, hungry... and
damn it all, Draco had no desire to be a werewolf for the rest of his
life! A dog was bad enough, but a dark dog?

"No way in
hell," Draco muttered under his breath. He could smell cold, if
that was possible. Ice and fir and pine and damp soil-- Hogwarts! The
Willow's entryway was just ahead, if they could just hurry...!

But
his bones were aching so badly, and pain was shooting up his arm--

'Wait, my arm?'

Hermione had been right-- the
charm worked exactly as she said it did. The closer they got to
Hogwarts and the further from the Shrieking Shack, the more Draco the
Dog had started to become Draco Malfoy the Human once more. But she
was falling behind, and Draco still knew that werewolf was behind
them...

He reached out one arm and groped in the dark until
he'd captured one of Hermione's hands in his own, and they stumbled
up the root-filled passageway that made such a steep climb back into
Hogwarts grounds. Draco unexpectedly tripped, his feet not quite done
transforming from paws back into his normal feet, and he slid down,
crushing Hermione underneath him.

Draco expected Hermione to
scream loudly in his ear and clutch onto him for dear life-- surely
in dire situations Granger would act at least a little bitlike
the rest of the female gender, right? But instead, Hermione sported
the most determined, resolute look he'd ever seen on her face, and
she whipped out her wand --so that was what she'd been
holding in her other hand-- and shouted out "RIDDIKULUS!"

All
of a sudden the werewolf stopped in its tracks and started to inflate
and mutate into something that looked vaguely human-- Weasley, as it
turned out. Draco craned his neck to see, and could barely muffle his
own laughter as the boggart --for that was what it had been all
along; how stupid was he not to have realized it sooner-- turned into
a swollen, very red version of Ron Weasley's face, complete with
freckles and a frustrated expression. His face kept swelling and
swelling until it burst, and the boggart went flying back to the
Shrieking Shack in the form of a balloon losing its helium.

Hermione
smiled and let herself sink back against the dirt and the roots, not
caring in the least about dirty robes now. When she opened her eyes,
theyrevealed a great deal of exhaustion, but overall, she
looked-- well, happy. And somehow, the feeling seemed
contagious.

"You're back," Hermione smiled, still
panting for lack of breath.

Draco looked at his hands in the
dim light coming down from Hogwarts --or was that the sky?-- and
smiled. A real, genuine, 'I'm happy, and it's not because someone
else is suffering at my expense' sort of smile. "Yeah. Guess I
am."

Hermione stared at him, her own smile somewhat
lopsided now, (because he supposed his own smile had caught her
off-guard) still pasted on her lips.

Now that he thought about
it, Granger really was rather nice looking. Strangely, it had taken a
good deal of dirt, dust, and sweat on the both ofthem for him to
realize it.

"Not bad. Not bad at all, Hermione."

She stared at him with even wider eyes this time, the smile
having transformed into a little 'o' shape.

"What? You
want me to keep calling you Granger?"

"Only in
front of everyone else," Hermione laughed softly. She squeaked
in protest when Draco --still pushed against her-- pushed just a bit
harder, this time lifting her away from the tunnel walls and into his
arms.

"Does that mean I can call you what I like when
we're alone?" Draco whispered in her ear. He might not have a
dog's senses any more, but the darkblush that swept over
Hermione's glistening-with-sweat and dusted-with-dirt skin was
impossible to miss. "Thank you-- Hermione," he added in
aslightly louder voice. "Now come on."

With his
hand still grasping hers, he pulled her out of the tunnel and into
the bright light of morning.

And so ends my VERY FIRST HARRY POTTER FIC. swallows
nervously So what did you think? ; Was I insane for signing up for
LJ's dmhgficexchange? Or was it "Mission: Accomplished?"

Let me know what you thought.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.